Hey! Don’t Build Brand Awareness, Yet. Do This First

Imagine you’re planning one of those epic cross-country road trips for a group of friends. The group has picked out the various stops and activities along the way. And you’ve been tasked with charting the course and drafting a budget, before the vacation adventure begins.

Now imagine trying to do that without knowing anything about your trip’s point of origin. You could be starting out from anywhere – Lagos, Nigeria; San Francisco, California; New York City… You have no idea. But you’ve still got a job to do, or you’ll let your friends down.

Your guess is as good. If you’re thinking that feat seems impossible, you’re probably right. There’s next to no chance your trip will be a success, if you don’t first have all the relevant information at your disposal.

That’s why this question is most important: “Why would I launch a brand awareness campaign without first having a full assessment of my starting point – my brand’s position in the market?

Yes it’s easy to have a vision, but it’s impossible to make that vision a reality unless you know your starting point.

Dropping Your Pin on the Map of Brand Value

How your brand is perceived in the market, has a huge impact on its success. Brands perceived as strong, instill confidence in investors, consumers, business partners, and employees. All that confidence translates into steady growth, more sales, and rising profits.

On the other hand, brands perceived as weak, vulnerable, or broken, will face problems. Everything will be harder: securing strong partnerships, retaining customers, and fixing mistakes.

This is precisely why it’s critical for business owners to assess their brand’s value in the marketplace, before launching a (costly) brand-awareness campaign.

Understanding where your brand value lies, is the only way to accurately formulate a marketing campaign that will reach your target audience, and drive demand for your brand.

In other words, it’s the only way to know exactly what to say about your brand, how to say it, and whom to reach with your marketing message.It also allows you to gain an advantage over competitors by being able to identify your business’s Unique Value Proposition, and being able to better strategize your partnerships, as well as improve customer satisfaction.

Three Steps Towards Brand Mapping 

How then do you assess your brand’s positioning, and improve your brand value? To pin down your brand’s starting point and accurately chart your path toward more successful customer engagement, you must do three things:

1. Identify your Brand’s Foundation

The information gathered during this phase is essential to understanding how weak or strong a brand’s foundation truly is. It will help determine how a company should craft messages, increase product demand, and improve customer relations moving forward.

To evaluate the foundation of your brand, going the old-fashioned route does it best; by using marketing or business intelligence, focus groups, or surveys – whatever best fits your timeline and resources.  But, be sure to get more than just quantitative research (e.g. surveys); real, honest qualitative feedback from clients or customers, is just as important.

A focus group is a great way to gain such feedback. Ensure you’re assembling groups that are truly representative of your customers and prospects. A group that is too narrowly focused will skew your results. Consider hiring a third-party moderator who’s free from bias, like Phyllion to help make this survey, and customer profiling, possible and effective.

Find out how your brand is currently being perceived, with this exercise, you can use that information to shape your future outreach.

2. Keep Your Messaging Consistent.

A brand’s message must be more than just letters on a page or words on a screen. It should be about building connections with customers, by evoking emotions and expressing foundational values. More often than not, customers’ realization that they share values with a brand, is a major contributor to their initial interest in, and continued loyalty toward that brand.

However, you won’t inspire that lifelong loyalty if your “powerfully crafted message” is inconsistently delivered. Indeed, most customers crave (and expect) consistency – across all platforms – when engaging with brands.

On the other hand, if your social media voice is whimsical and sardonic, but your TV ads are straightforward and serious, consumers will have a hard time understanding what your brand is really all about. But, your brand will be seen as reliable, when it maintains a consistent message and attitude, across all platforms.

Create brand guidelines for your marketing messaging, or hire experts like Phyllion to help ensure you brand’s message is always focused and consistent:

• Begin with a 5-10 word purpose statement that explains why your organization exists.
• Next, a brand manifesto should flesh out your purpose statement, offering a better explanation of who you are, what you do, why you do it, and what your brand has made or aims to make.
• Finally, a visual identity guide should outline all brand aesthetics rules, from colour and typeface specifications, to guidelines regarding imagery and logos.

3. Be True to Your Word

In the end, a large portion of your brand’s image and overall value, will be attributed to your words and actions. When a brand consistently keeps its customers satisfied and engaged, such brand is rewarded with loyalty. And a major part of customer satisfaction revolves around delivering on the promises your organization makes.

On the other hand, when a brand’s messaging doesn’t align with its actions, customers’ authenticity alarms go off. For instance…

• A food business putting forth its restaurants as a “healthy” choice, but receiving a failing grade by the regulation agency, for “its use of antibiotics in meat and poultry.”
• Similarly, a brand often talking about how much it values its employees and people, receiving criticism for its pay, benefits and workplace policies, by the same employees, on social media.

There are many ways to garner positive interest in your brand. But there is only one sure path to establishing loyalty, and convincing customers to take the action you desire: maintaining the highest level of customer satisfaction. Strengthen your brand by setting enticing (but realistic) expectations, and always delivering positive results.

In Conclusion

You can’t plan a road trip without knowing your point of origin, and you can’t launch a successful brand awareness and campaign, without first getting a full assessment of your brand’s value – and ensuring you have sufficient standing, to keep delivering on your brand’s promises.

Take steps to determine where your brand stands in the market today, so you can chart the next legs of your brand journey. Let Phyllion show you HOW.